


Who You Are

by tryslora



Series: A Kind of Magic [10]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Community: fullmoon_ficlet, Dubious Behaviour Towards Women, F/M, Lydia Being Lydia, Memories, Sulky!Jackson, off-screen violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia has a gift for Jackson to help him on his quest to find his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who You Are

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for Prompt #8 - Memories at fullmoon_ficlet on Livejournal. As always, I do not own the characters or world of Teen Wolf, but I do love playing with them.

Lydia finds Jackson in the empty Grey Hall. “You fought with Matt again today.” She crouches down and frames his face with her hands, kissing the bruises that are already fading. “You can’t do that, not if you want to stay safe.”

“He already calls me a monster.” Jackson ducks his head, anger fled in the aftermath of the fight. He slumps against the wall and closes his eyes. He looks like a broken toy, and it infuriates her that Matt could do this to him.

“He calls the Hales monsters too,” she points out, lips pressed thinly together. “And he calls Allison traitor, and Erica a freak. You are not alone, Jackson. You will never be alone.” She doesn’t mention what Matt calls her; Jackson would kill him for it, and she will _not_ have that blood on her hands.

He says nothing, and _that_ worries Lydia. This bullying, this fear day after day… it wears on the boy who once thought he was the purest of blood. “Darling,” she says softly. “Matthew is an idiot. His family sides with the Argents because they are unwilling to do anything but follow the biggest bully.”

“The Martins side with the Argents,” Jackson points out.

She cannot refute that. “But I don’t. And Allison is with us as well. You are as human as the rest of us, Jackson. I can see that even if Matt refuses to.”

“But we don’t know _what_ I am.”

Lydia has been saving something for the right moment, and she knows Jackson will forgive her in the excitement of new information. She holds out her hand. “Come with me.”

For a moment, she thinks he will resist the simple order, but she repeats it once and he takes her hand, walking with her down the hall. They are given a wide berth—the entire school is aware of the fight—and make their way easily to a small abandoned classroom. It was Charms, once upon a time in Lydia’s first year here, but now it is covered in dust and unused. She casts a quiet lock upon the door as they enter; even as a fifth year, she is confident most of the faculty cannot break it.

She is, after all, the brightest witch of her generation when she chooses to show it.

“Sit.” She points and Jackson does so quickly. It makes her smile how obedient she is. Allison asked once if Lydia were afraid of his temper, but Lydia knows he would _never_ hurt her. She is safe with Jackson.

She reaches into her book bag and carefully withdraws a small pensieve from the charmed depths. It was a gift for her recent sixteenth birthday, her parents so proud of her for wanting to remove dangerous memories, and so utterly unaware of their daughter’s actual life. Jackson’s eyes widen as she pulls out a vial and tilts the silver thread into the basin.

“What is that?”

She offers him her hand and when he takes it, she smiles at him. “A gift,” she says, and together they slip into the memory.

_They stand on the streets of London and see a man and woman, both dressed in finery, both lost in their own world as they stare at each other. She is large with child, fit to burst from the looks of it. He touches her cheek with reverence, brushes a kiss against her lips._

_Neither of them sees the men approaching, hears the footsteps or the calls that are lost to time and memory. This is without sound, but it is easy to see that she blushes from what they say. That she grows uncomfortable, that they press in close to her, touching her arm, her shoulder, her belly. They seem drawn to her, despite her protestations._

_Her companion bares his teeth, long and sharp. He growls loudly as his eyes flash red._

_The strangers stand their ground, between him and his wife as if to protect her._

_She begs them to leave. She touches them, one by one, and they look into her eyes and fall beneath her spell. She weaves it around them in pretty, unheard words, soft and light, pressed with a kiss to their palms before she nudges them away._

_Her husband growls again, and for a moment it looks to be all undone. Whispered words, and the strangers leave, letting the couple be._

_His eyes slide back to a soft pale blue._

_It is her face that is familiar, though, with the stark planes that are almost sharp enough to be too much yet somehow create a strange ethereal beauty. Her unborn son will someday look so much like her._

_But his eyes belong to his father, the color of ice gone cold in anger, flashing red with sheer fury._

Jackson growls, and they fall out of the memory. His hand grips Lydia tightly enough to hurt. She makes a sound; he releases her immediately, raising her fingers to his lips in apology.

“Where did you get it?”

“I have my ways.” It had been a circuitous route to find that man who had once met the Millers. She has been looking for a year, ever since Jackson found the name of his parents. It isn’t as if studying for her OWLS actually takes up much of Lydia’s study time, after all. “I’ll bring more when I find them. We will understand the truth of who you are.”

“ _What_ I am,” Jackson says bitterly.

“ _Who_ ,” Lydia tells him, tone sharp. “While I suspect you may have more in common with the Hales than you thought, you are still Jackson Whittemore and if you try to tell me one more time that you are not, I shall slap you until you cannot see straight. Are we understood?”

A smile edges into his expression. “Completely.”

He doesn’t say the words, but she hears them anyway. She leans up to kiss his cheek because yes, she loves him too, and always will, no matter who he turns out to be.


End file.
